Pakistani prelate calls official's remark on blasphemy law 'setback'

(January 13, 2011) Catholic officials in Pakistan expressed disappointment after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reiterated there would be no amendment to the country's blasphemy law, which makes insulting the Prophet Mohammed or the Quran punishable by life imprisonment or death. "This is a setback. We have to take it in our stride and move on," Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops' Conference, told Catholic New Service January 12, hours after the prime minister's remarks. "We are really disappointed," Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the church's National Commission for Justice and Peace, told CNS from his office in Lahore. However, Jacob said Gilani has his own "political compulsions" to make such a declaration on the sensitive issue. The Pakistan Peoples Party, the major party in Gilani's coalition government, has only 125 seats in the 342-member National Assembly and is dependent on the support of pro-Islamic parties and independent legislators for the survival of the government. Beena Sarwar, a Muslim and prominent member of Citizens for Democracy, which has been campaigning against the abuse of the blasphemy law, told CNS that the prime minister's remark ruling out an amendment "appears to be a political move."